#Iraq Battles for Control of Oil Refinery

At the Wall Street Journal, "Iraqi Government Forces Battle for Control of Major Oil Refinery Elite Counterterrorism Units Battle Islamist Rebels for Control of Baiji Refinery":

Iraq's counterterrorism units backed by other security forces and helicopter gunships were battling insurgents on Wednesday for control of the country's main oil refinery, trying to keep the fuel hub that supplies Baghdad from falling to a powerful week-old offensive by Sunni Muslim militants, Iraqi officials said.

The gunships bombarded positions of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham fighters inside the refinery in the northern city of Beiji, a state oil official said.

Two fuel-storage tanks were in flames after hours of fighting that erupted before dawn on Wednesday, when ISIS militants attacked with mortars and machine guns, another state oil official said.  The refinery's several hundred employees fled the facility as it came under the latest assault in the weeklong siege of the oil hub.

A military spokesman, Gen. Qassim Atta, insisted on Iraqiya state television that the refinery was under full government control, contradicting oil ministry officials and others who said the oil facility was at least partly in insurgent hands. By late Wednesday, ISIS fighters had retreated from the refinery complex to an adjacent compound for employees, ministry officials said.

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